Tales from the Crypt was a horror anthology TV series that ran from 1989 to 1996 on the premium cable channel HBO. It was based on the 1950s EC Comics series of the same name. The series is not to be confused with Tales from the Darkside, another similarly themed horror anthology series.

It was one of the few anthology series to be allowed to have full freedom from censorship by the FCC, due to the fact that it was on HBO, a cable television station. Given that HBO often allows its shows to have more graphic material than most shows on American television, the station allowed the series to contain graphic violence as well as other content that hadn't appeared in most television series up to that time, such as profanity, nudity, and sexual situations.

The series began as an American series, filmed in California. In the later seasons filming continued in England and many episodes filmed during that time revolved around British characters.

Episodes

Each episode began with the show's host, the Crypt Keeper, a wisecracking decomposing corpse (voiced by John Kassir), introducing the episode, which would be one individual story. Many of these episodes had guest appearances by notable celebrities. Many famous celebrities, such as Tom Hanks and Arnold Schwarzenegger, also directed some of the episodes of the series.

The episode "You, Murderer" is particularly of note, due to the fact that it was one of the first shows ever filmed that used computer effects to digitally insert actors into an episode. Alfred Hitchcock appeared in a cameo at the beginning of the episode, and Humphrey Bogart played the starring role for this story. Due to the fact that both men had been dead for decades, their appearances made the episode very well known amongst fans. This episode was also notable for Isabella Rossellini's guest appearance in which she parodies her lookalike mother, Ingrid Bergman for the first and probably only time.

Spin-offs

Two movies, Demon Knight (1995) and Bordello of Blood (1996), were made based on the series, neither of which was particularly successful. In 1993, a Saturday morning cartoon called Tales from the Cryptkeeper was made based off the series, with none of the violence or other questionable content that was in the original series making an appearance in it. A kid's game show called Secrets of the Cryptkeeper's Haunted House was also spun off from the series. After the original series was cancelled, a spin-off called Perversions of Science premiered in 1997 on HBO, this time being based around science fiction instead of horror. The series only lasted for a short run, and was cancelled the same year.
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